An Explosive Story: The Rise and Fall of the Common Depth Charge

Abstract

With outbreak of World War I, submarine came into its own. For Germans and British and to a lesser extent French, Austrians and Americans submarine became an important weapon for use against surface fleets. By spring of 1917 German U-boats had brought Allies to brink of starvation. In World War II, U-boats again dominated until late 1943. In Pacific, marauding US submarines gradually throttled Japanese movement, particularly on its inland seas. One of main problems in coping with this weapon was lack of a suitable counter. Normally introduction of a new weapon quickly leads to development of countermeasures. Yet while by 1914 John Holland's sea-going submarine had been in use for more than fourteen years, and Whitehead motor-torpedo had been available since 1866, no preparations to attack this submersible warship had been proposed, let alone implemented. Indeed, that oft-quoted doyen of naval affairs, Fred T. Jane, asserted in 1902 that the sea-going submarine is a pure myth. On other hand, by 1908 Germany had realised that however great battleship construction programme initiated by Admiral von Tirpitz and supported strongly by Kaiser, it still could be blockaded easily because of its short coastline. The Germans thus seized on U-boat as a possible answer to threat posed by Royal Navy. Its first submarine, U-l, was launched at Kiel on 30 August 1905. By August 1914 it had twentyeight U-boats operational and by June 1917 sixty-one were at sea. Most were targeted against inbound British trade west of Ireland, although some emphasis was also placed on attacking RN's much larger fleet. In 1914 admirals of Royal Navy remained contemptuous of potential of submarine. It was thus not surprising that serious preparations had not been made to defend against U-boat. The loss of cruisers Pathfinder, Aboutir, Cressy, Hogue, Hawke and Hermes to U-boat torpedoes in first three months of war was a tremendous shock. Indeed, many refused to believe it, instead attributing losses to mines. Although still unreliable (a fault not fully appreciated until mid-World War II), torpedoes were respected, carried on most major surface ships, and could run for up to three and one-half miles at thirtyeight knots. The prevalent attitude among officers of various surface fleets (including even Germans) was to scoff at this unproven weapon. One reason for lack of anti-submarine weaponry was that there was no detecting device of any kind, above or below water, except for human eye. Hydrophones, radar, radio